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Sunday, April 3, 2011

IUSF wants UN mediation to help restore democracy

Mirror - The Inter-University Students’ Federation has written to the United Nations, seeking its intervention to restore democracy in Sri Lanka.

Their petition says that the conclusion of the war in May 2009 hadn’t brought about the anticipated change in the country.

As part of a UPFA strategy aimed at silencing democratic opposition, the IUSF alleged the government had targeted student organizations and prohibited student organizations at universities.

It said that the present regime was on JR Jayewardena’s track, placing student unions, trade unions and political parties at risk.

IUSF’s convener Sanjeeva Bandara alleged that their group had been targeted by successive governments due to their decisive intervention in student as well as national issues. T

he present regime, the IUSF alleged, had mercilessly targeted any organization and individual considered hostile to the incumbent administration.

The IUSF alleged the opposition and the media had been persistently attacked, while the Attorney General’s Department and the police at the behest of the government interfered in judicial process at the expense of good governance.

In spite of conclusion of war, civil administration hadn’t been restored in Northern and Eastern Provinces, where Tamil speaking people suffer in silence.

Accusing Higher Education Minister S.B.Dissanayake of setting up goons on the student community, the IUSF said that at the behest of the minister over 300 undergraduates had been expelled, while about 40 put behind bars.

Acting on the orders of Minister Dissanayake, Vice Chancellors had denied university teachers their right to elect heads of various faculties, the IUSF alleged.

The government had unleashed violence targeting the student community at the Sabaragamuwa University, where the IUSF was under heavy pressure with Minister Dissanayake personally leading a campaign, the IUSF alleged and called for UN intervention before it was too late.

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